Tank Commander Memoirs - Any Allied ones of note?

[[KG]Destaex]

I have read Vasiliy Krysov's Panzer Destroyer: Memoirs of a Russian Tank Commander 

I am half way through Otto Carius's Tigers in the Mud

 

Both have been very enlightening when it comes to realising how exactly Tanks were used in real life as compared to how this simulation portrays them.

 

Next I wonder if their are any British Commonwealth or American Memoirs to read by Tankers from ww2.  

 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by [KG]Destaex

[ShampooX]

 

that ought to hold ya over for a while

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by JohnRitterKreuz

[LukeFF]

Just released: Brothers in Arms: One Legendary Tank Regiment’s Bloody War From D-Day to VE-Day https://www.amazon.com/dp/0802159087/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_fabc_AEXRBX7CC5DQ2ETV9KWQ

[[KG]Destaex]

Perfect guys. Those will tide me over for some time. 

Be cool to have a Churchill and STuG memoir as well given they are coming up. But beggars cannot be choosers.

Edited December 14, 2021 by [KG]Destaex

[MajorMagee]

I found Death Traps by Belton Y. Cooper to be a good read.

[gunmetalstug]

26 minutes ago, MajorMagee said:

I found Death Traps by Belton Y. Cooper to be a good read.

Despite whatever entertainment value it might hold, this books has been widely discredited as an insanely misleading and deceptive account of the Sherman's war performance.

[=gRiJ=Roman-]

Read Spearhead and I loved it. Recommended! 

[[KG]Destaex]

On 12/14/2021 at 10:29 PM, MajorMagee said:

I found Death Traps by Belton Y. Cooper to be a good read.

I have actually read Death Traps a while back. A lot of people discredit it, but I take it as that mans experience with Shermans. The Americans certainly did lose a lot of tanks, but not so many tank crew. So his title of them being death traps is debatable I would say. The Chieftain from the youbube channel of the same name is for the opposite. But has to justify his judgement by siting strategic objectives and logistics rather than actual combat performance. Over all I think the Sherman was a good tank. Nothing is perfect.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, [KG]Destaex said:

A lot of people discredit it, but I take it as that mans experience with Shermans.

 

Well, there's the problem - he wasn't a tanker but rather was involved in the recovery and repair of battle-damaged tanks. Much like Iron Coffins, it may make for a good read but it's not the most factual and even-handed wartime account out there. Not to mention, much of the book was ghost-written.

 

https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/01/29/debunking-deathtraps-part-1/

Edited December 16, 2021 by LukeFF

[[KG]Destaex]

21 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Well, there's the problem - he wasn't a tanker but rather was involved in the recovery and repair of battle-damaged tanks. Much like Iron Coffins, it may make for a good read but it's not the most factual and even-handed wartime account out there. Not to mention, much of the book was ghost-written.

 

https://tankandafvnews.com/2015/01/29/debunking-deathtraps-part-1/

Yep. Just one man and his experience with Shermans, rather than in them. His memories and claims vs the official ones.

[MajorMagee]

I've had the privilege to help "make history" several times in my career, and I'm well aware that the messy low level details I experienced, do not make up the coherent story that a historian would want to convey, and yet they are part of the whole picture. There are many levels of "truth" in these matters, and there is value in understanding as many different perspectives as one can gather on the subject.

 

One of my favorite books in a collection of over 6,500, was written within months of the end of WWI (History of the World War by Francis A. March). Despite the author's claim of being a sober retelling of history, its words belie the passion of the moment, and it certainly has a victor's bias throughout. Later works may be better researched, and composed in a more even handed way, but if I want to know what the thinking of the time actually was, I always study personally biased but differing versions of history, and let that factor into my overall understanding.

 

 

[gunmetalstug]

3 hours ago, MajorMagee said:

Later works may be better researched, and composed in a more even handed way, but if I want to know what the thinking of the time actually was, I always study personally biased but differing versions of history, and let that factor into my overall understanding.

There's an interesting discussion to be had here re: how primary sources may misconstrue historical events due to a more limited perspective, yet that same limited perspective can also be a valuable insight into the thinking of the day.

 

This is pretty clearly seen in ancient history, where the vast majority of Roman accounts are from the upper class and told exclusively from that perspective, while more 'grounded' perspectives were either never considered or lost to time... with the famous exception of calcified Pompeii graffiti, which reads, word-for-word, like a 4chan thread.

 

However, there's a problem with using limited accounts as insights into history because people (even dedicated history students) are largely terrible at ignoring their own primacy bias. This can be exploited in pretty nasty and deleterious ways, with grim real-world consequences. Potential History may primarily be a meme channel, but his video on this is really good.

 

For a slightly more academic take, military history professor Bret Devereux has a fantastic series on his blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry about Teaching Paradox Games, and how Histiography (how we teach and remember history) can be equally important as the history itself.

 

A discussion of Histiography definitely will apply to first-hand tanker accounts, as they are by definition very limited perspectives, but this may not be the proper thread or forum to do so.

 

Happy (and thoughtful) reading, everyone!

 

[Lofte]

Some memories of WWII russian tankers you can read here (EN):

 

https://iremember.ru/en/memoirs/tankers/

[DD_Arthur]

The best account ever written by allied tank crew are two books by a guy called Ken Tout.

They are ‘Tank’ and ‘Tanks advance’. Unfortunately they are both out of print and now expensive and difficult to obtain. 

Why are they so good? Because Ken Tout started as a Sherman gunner in Normandy and ended the war as tank commander.

Unusually for an NCO memoir, Ken Tout could write. I mean he could really write and had a brilliant style and prose.

 

If you really think the Sherman was a good tank then you really need to get hold of these books. 

 

A word of caution; Ken Tout wrote quite a few books but none of them approach these first two.

[[KG]Destaex]

DD_Arthur. Would love to read Ken Tout's books. Looked and the ones you mention are not available. There is one available called Fine Night for Tanks.

https://www.amazon.com.au/Fine-Night-Tanks-Road-Falaise-ebook/dp/B019QI4DKE/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=ken+tout+tank+commander&qid=1640938279&sprefix=ken+tout%2Caps%2C267&sr=8-4

 

Tried a sample of Spearhead. I will probably get it but for now it is too dramatised and too much like a novel. They filled in a lot with filler. Fun to read but not necessarily as accurate as I would have liked. Too much of the Biographers work I think.

 

Got "By Tank into Normandy" after reading a sample that did not really get out of his early life. Which goes on for more pages than I would have liked about family and tha boys and what good chaps they are. Still not into the Tanker in action yet. But it will come. Still it is more what I am looking for, a autobiography or memoir. 

 

The others I am yet to check.

 

[SCG_Neun]

My father was a tanker in the 629 Tank Destroyers, so I have a lot of his information that he passed onto me before he passed away in 2013, as I'm sure there are similar sons out there from all sides of the conflict.     I have read most of the books mentioned but I really like this one:  Hans Von Luck, Panzer Commander

 

I also like, Panzer Tactics, Wolfgang Schneider  Of course this is a reference manual and not a story based book.

Edited December 31, 2021 by SCG_Neun

[SCG_Junkman]

How about Grenadiers by Kurt "Panzer" Meyer

I'm reading Brothers in Arms I'll let you know

[DD_Friar]

1 hour ago, SCG_junkman said:

I'm reading Brothers in Arms

I got that for xmas and am looking forward to getting stuck in and finding inspiration for missions when the Normandy map lands.